Motor vehicles typically include a vehicle body including several load-bearing structural components such as hinge pillars. For example, a hinge pillar can at least partially support a vehicle door. Other load-bearing structural components can support other parts of the vehicle.
In addition to the load-bearing structural components, motor vehicles include a power plant (e.g., engine or electric motor) that produces driving power. The driving power is transferred through a transmission to a driveline for driving a set of wheels at selected gear ratios. Automatic transmissions shift automatically to the appropriate gear ratio based on various vehicle operating conditions including speed and torque. Typically, a desired transmission operating mode is selected by the vehicle operator. The modes provided by most automatic transmissions generally include Park, Neutral, Reverse and Drive. In Drive, the automatic transmission automatically shifts between three, four, five or even six different forward gear ratios based on the vehicle operating conditions. In this disclosure, the automatic transmission is considered to be operating in an Out-of-Park mode when it is operating in any mode other than Park (e.g., Neutral, Reverse and Drive modes). It is useful to shift the automatic transmission from the Park mode to the Out-of-Park mode without the need to start the engine or supplying electrical power to the vehicle. To do so, the vehicle may include a manual park release actuator for manually shifting the automatic transmission from the Park mode to an Out-of-Park mode. As used herein, the term “manual park release actuator” refers to an actuator that can be manually manipulated in order to shift the automatic transmission from the Park mode to the Out-of-Park mode. Because the manual park release actuator can be manually manipulated, it also useful to provide access to such actuator.